Sunday, December 28, 2008

Awesome Tapes From Africa Mix

I've been taking some of my christmas break from work(s) to dig around mp3 blogs. One of my favorite, recent finds has been "Awesome Tapes From Africa" a blog of found cassettes audio from, you guessed it, Africa. I am pretty sure that the writer doesn't live in Africa, since I've seen a ton of these kinds of tapes at my Afro-Caribbean markets in Nashville over the years. I've really been missing the immigrant culture I used to experience in Nashville. The Kitsap Peninsula is absolutely one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, but it's a bit of a monoculture. Ok, it's a complete monoculture. What's really killing me is the lack of good food. There's some great food across the water in Pike Place, but you can be almost sure you'll receive the worst service in the universe. I think what I miss the most of about the immigrant restaurants and markets I went to in the Nashville area was how nice everybody was- they appreciated my business, they remembered me when I came back, they asked me what I was going to do with a food I bought, or I asked them what they recommended. Sometimes when I do business in Seattle I get the impression that the server or seller thinks that I should feel honored to get to do business with them.

Since my wife and I have all summer off, and our lease is up in June, we're thinking about spending the summer renting something cheap in downtown Portland and just putting our stuff in storage for the summer. Everything in the Kitsap area is for rent, so finding a space when we get back is not a worry. Our current property managers are absolutely negligent and ineffective, so our lease won't be renewed anyways. We're hoping maybe we can grab some kind of summer work or volunteer work in town and meet a few people who might help us land jobs in Portland sooner than just throwing applications around.